In Passing
by Bialy
Summary: A collection of ficlets centering around the taskforce and SPK, the under valued members of the Kira investigation.
1. News

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note and I'm making no profit off this. I just enjoy playing around with these characters. Yes, in that way.

Note: So…this is In Passing. A collection of ficlets based on prompts from an lj community. Most of you have seen me do this before, with Inferiority Complex. I had so much fun with it, and felt a silly amount of pride at finishing it. Along the way I also ended up with a ton of ideas for ficlets about the _other_ characters, but had bound my hands with pure Matsuda (not that I was complaining _in the least_). So now, we have this. MOAR FICLETS. This time, based on the minor characters. Essentially, it's taskforce and SPK members, though I expect Namikawa, Mido, Misora and Penber will probably sneak in here at some point. I also like Ide almost as much as I like Aizawa, so…prepare for a lot of him. Requests and ideas usually taken up, so let me know!

x

**News**

**Prompt: 18. Break**

The news was still talking about Higuchi's death.

Ide glowered at the television set and aimed the remote at it, and the screen flicked into blackness. It had been over a week since the Japanese taskforce had swooped down and arrested a man on suspicion of being Kira, and since he had collapsed at their feet. The news reports made him angry - there had even been suggestions that the entire thing, included Higuchi's heart attack, had been a set-up to make it look like progress was being made, and L wasn't as inept as everyone was beginning to think.

Ide might have thought that, once, but he knew better. Now…he'd met L.

Granted, it was from a distance. Granted, all he'd seen was a flick of dark hair under a helmet as the notebook (the _murder_ notebook, he thought, and shuddered) was passed into the helicopter. But the lengths they'd gone to, and, as Aizawa told him in a strangled voice later, for L to actually home out _himself_…it was what had made Aizawa go back.

He'd asked Ide to go with him. Ide had refused. He still didn't trust L, and after he'd practically offered Matsuda up for the slaughter on that God-awful Sakura TV programme, Ide could barely stomach the thought of approaching the man and asking to be _allowed_ to help him. He'd been doing just fine on his own so far, and when it had counted the most, he had been there. _He_ had helped.

The doorbell rang. Ide frowned; he didn't usually get visitors, especially so late in the evening. He pulled himself up, and headed for the door.

It was Aizawa. He had his coat wrapped round him, and looked like he hadn't slept in several days. He opened his mouth, then closed it, and then said quietly, "Can I come in?"

"Of course," Ide replied, confused, and stepped back.

Aizawa hurried into the apartment. Once the door had clicked shut behind him, he spoke again. "Ide - L's dead."

Ide didn't realise he'd still been holding the remote until it clattered to the floor.


	2. Normalcy

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Note: _And you thought I would never continue it_. Okay I actually have NO idea what you thought but I totally intended to update this as quickly as IC and then just never did. So today I have two vaguely pointless, rambling SPK chapters for you. and I have about five hours of Economics and three hours of History and two hours of Debate-work to do and I am fanficcing it up instead. Oh, and I have to redraft my personal statement and apply for an exam and finish my UCAS application, I also need to sleep, start learning to write sci-fi and real people, balance out my friendships with my desire to kick people in the shins, adjust my diet from just pasta and cheese to include meat and vegetables, and stop sitting around in the dark.

_What the hell am I doing_.

Oh, yeah, enjoy :D

x

**Normalcy**

**Prompt: 16. Food**

Rester is shopping.

The store is small, and tucked well, well out of the way. Near has strange ideas and seems to operate on another plane of existence to the rest of them, but he won't put them in danger unless he has to. If Rester were inclined to paint everything with daisies and sparkles, he'd think that Near was looking out for them. Rester has hay fever, and has never really seen the point in sparkles, so he thinks Near just doesn't want to lose potentially useful help until it's good for the case.

Eggs. They go carefully into the basket, followed by milk, followed by a packet of "dry-cured" ham. He doesn't know what that means and has never taken the time to find out - but Lidner keeps telling him that's what she wants, so he gets it all the same. Coffee; now that's something he doesn't forget. Near might not touch the stuff, but the rest of them are seriously considering having their blood replaced with it. Gevanni had complained yesterday that he was pretty sure one of his kidneys had turned into a particularly large coffee bean.

Rester _never_ shopped before this. It's bizarre, really, thinking of him as he was, doing something this domestic. But he's not that person anymore and, really, he won't ever be going back there. He'll either die in this case, or -

Either way, he won't be going back there.

He gets an extra jar of coffee. On his way to pay, he stops, and selects a few action figures from a tub near the checkout.

Everything is automatic and so, so insane when he steps back and looks at it. Today he'd buying milk and tomorrow…he could be gunning down teenagers for all he knows. Mello's face flashes in his mind, all scarred skin and straw hair. He focuses on a pack of digestives instead.

Yes, it is insane. And it'll change him forever and really, if he's honest, Rester's never felt more at home. But, honestly - _shopping_?


	3. Suspended

Disclaimer: Not mine. Still. I KNOW SHOCKING ISN'T IT. After all this fanfiction they still haven't gifted it to me. Tch, some people.

Note: I clearly am full of angst today, amirite? Idk I just love Rester, Lidner and Gevanni so damn much. I love the taskforce too, OF COURSE (what do you take me for), but I've had a lot of exposure to them through IC and War Paint. The SPK, however (apart from OC) have always danced tantalisingly out of my reach, and now I am spamming my ff account with my fangirlyness of them. So I give you: angsting naked Lidner. Except my recent Red Dwarf obsession means I keep typing it 'Lister'. Apparently, Halle is now a Scouser.

_Vindaloo'd for your pleasure._

x

**Suspended**

**Prompt: 46. Fire**

Lidner shrugs off her clothes. Usually, she takes them off slowly, fold or hangs them, or, if needs be, places them into the washing bin. Never, _never_ does she simply shrug them off, leaving them in a crumpled, desolate heap in the middle of the bathroom floor. She has turned the shower on before she realised she needs to undress, so the tiled floor is moist with condensation. The clothes will take up the water, and be un-wearable until they've been properly laundered.

Lidner could care less. She steps into the shower, and the water falls, clear and hot, against her skin. Her eyes are half-closed, cast downwards. She holds herself ramrod straight on a daily basis so at a glance there isn't anything different in her posture today. And she's always tense, always so, so tense, so the definition of clenched muscles in her shoulders is nothing new.

She feels different, though. She reaches up, turns the dial, eases the water temperature higher. Steam fills the bathroom and she doesn't have to _see_, although really, what she's seeing is absence, because there won't be a flash of black and shards of gold slicing through the white. There'll just be nothing. With enough steam, though, maybe she can hope, maybe she can _imagine_-

She doesn't even know who the other boy was, the one she sent all the cars after. His face flashed up on the news, moments before his body was pumped full of metal, and it occurs to her now, under a jet of angry water, that it was her fault.

What job was she even meant to be doing, anyway…?

She turns the water up again. Now, the water is scalding, reddening her skin, and she feels it, she knows she can feel it, but the stimulus isn't reaching her brain and she forgets about it all too quickly.

Death is so final, she thinks. Something so vibrant, tangible, _alive_…disappearing into nothingness in the blink of an eye. Because a body isn't a person, and ashes in the flames coming off a church aren't even a body, and Lidner knows she's going to have nightmares about that, but at this stage she has nightmares about so much that it barely seems worth mentioning.

Her shower lasts twice as long as usual, partly because she kept forgetting what she was doing and partly because, halfway through, her senses suddenly rushed back to her and the heat became overwhelming, she had to fight her way out and gasp long, cold breaths of air from the room around her. The heat has spread over the bathroom now and is cloying at her, even as she tucks a towel around herself and scoops her hair into another.

She thinks she'll start crying eventually and that it'll be stupid, because she barely even _knew_ Mello and it's just so absurd for her, a grown woman, an FBI agent, to be having this kind of reaction over a maladjusted, overemotional boy barely out of his teens. Lidner does cry, eventually, and when she does she realises that rationality never really had much to do with Mello, and it's fitting that it should have left her, now, too.

She sleeps like the dead and if she dreams she doesn't remember it. And then, there's the preparations for Yellow Box to be taken care of, all the last minute changes that came about from Mello's actions. It saved their lives, really, and that has to be taken into account in the plans, but Lidner knows it won't hold off the inevitable for long.

She'll take every day she can get, though. She still has a job to do. After that, after it's finished, after Light Yagami is in the ground - in a cell, she corrects herself - then, _then_ she can mourn.

Lidner exhales. It's not over yet. She adjusts her focus, fixes her gaze, checks her gun. It's not over yet.


	4. Overnight

Disclaimer: Not mine. I don't own Death Note, alcohol, or Ide's breakfast.

Note: Okay, TWO notes today. A long one at the end hich you don't have to read but if you've ever reviewed any of my stuff, especially Inferiority Complex or this, please do.

And then there's the usual pre-ficlet rant you've all come to love/hate/use as a target for spud guns. So I really like the dynamic between Matsuda and Ide (of all the wonderful character dynamics in DN, this might well be my favourite) and I just love the idea of Ide taking care of his dorky little friend. Also, as anyone who has read IC will know, Matsuda/alcohol is my OTP.

Though he'd even get topped by booze. _Gamecrazy knows what I'm talking about._

x

**Overnight**

**Prompt: 24. Drink**

"Oh, you're _joking_."

Ide folded his arms, and leant against the door frame. "You know," he continued, "this is _exactly_ why I wanted a key to your apartment."

Matsuda didn't respond. Mostly, this was due to the fact that he was unconscious. The position he was in (one leg thrown over the arm of a chair, the other one up over the back, head nearly snapping off his neck with the angle it was at against the floor) suggested that he probably hadn't exactly fallen asleep in this position voluntarily, and the whisky seeping into the carpet from a bottle a little way away from his left hand enforced Ide's suspicions.

"What was it this time, Matsuda?" he sighed, shutting the door behind him. "Nightmares again?"

He bent down and picked up the bottle. The label told him that it hadn't been expensive, which on one level he was grateful for, because it meant that spill wouldn't strain Matsuda's already thinly-stretched wallet that much. Then again, a cheap brand of alcohol…

So Matsuda had taken up drinking properly now. Ide shook his head and took the bottle into the kitchen, standing it by the sink for Matsuda to deal with when he sobered up.

"Matsuda?" Returning to where the cop was slumped, Ide prodded him with his food. "Matsuda. Wake up. Come on."

After a few moments, Matsuda made a strange groaning noise. Ide nodded, satisfied that he wasn't dead, and gave him a sharper poke. Matsuda groaned more loudly, and flopped a hand across his stomach. He opened one eye - reluctantly, blearily - and Ide noticed he was starting to look distinctly green around the gills.

"Uh - don't move," he cautioned, and darted back into the kitchen. A few seconds of fumbling under Matsuda's sink turned up a large plastic bowl that Ide supposed would have to do. He ran a little water into it, anticipating he'd be the one cleaning it out and he was damn well going to make it easier for himself, and returned to Matsuda's side. "If you need to throw up, use this, okay?"

Matsuda just groaned again.

"You're terribly articulate this evening."

Ide drew a breath and settled back onto his haunches. This had to have been the fourth of fifth time he'd found Matsuda like this. He'd _known_ that the taskforce's youngest member was going to have problems readjusting after what had happened at Yellow Box, but none of them - not even Aizawa, who usually knew everything - had any _idea_ it would be this bad.

Matsuda had nightmares. Ide wasn't sure what they involved, because Matsuda only ever spoke about Kira and Light and not being happy when he was at least three sails to the wind, making a deep conversation a little difficult. He knew they were pretty vivid, though, because one night (when Matsuda had been in an even worse state than this, and Ide hadn't wanted to leave him alone because he wasn't sure there'd be anything to come back to) he'd woken up and charged out of his bedroom clutching his gun. Ide, who'd be sleeping on the sofa, had jerked awake and tumbled onto the floor, in a mess of blankets and cushions. Then, Matsuda had seemed to come to, and hadn't had any idea what he was doing. He had blushed, mumbled excuses, and tried to pretend that he'd heard something outside.

The next morning Ide had insisted Matsuda let him have a key to his apartment.

Matsuda suddenly let out a small wail and leant over the bowl. He retched, and, pulling a face, Ide backed off and left him to it. He went back into the kitchen and started to fix coffee - strong, black, no sugar or Matsuda would end up vomiting until the sun came up.

Eventually, Matsuda would join him, lean against the counter, mumble something, smile at him and say that Ide was _always there for him_ and he _really loved him but not in that way, you know_? He'd drink a couple of mouthfuls of coffee and stumble into his bedroom, and at eight Ide would call Aizawa and tell him that he and Matsuda would be a little late in for work that day. Ide would take Matsuda out for breakfast, and Matsuda would be quiet and embarrassed and unshaven while Ide was quiet and worried and had shaved even though he wasn't in his own apartment.

He really didn't know what he was going to do about Matsuda. But if he got him through to lunchtime, that'd be a hell of a start.

x

Plastic bowl with water in equals portable sick-bowl. _Fact. _Ignore any slash overtones you may get from Ide having a key to Matsuda's place.

Now, the note. Mainly, this is a thank you, to be honest with you guys. I know there are probably better places for this than hijacking a chapter of a story, but you know, whatever. At the time I'm putting this up, In Passing has 13 reviews, and three chapters (this'll be the fourth). Now I know that's probably not 'omg huge' or anything on a grand scale, but to me, it's massive.

When I came back to fanfiction in July, I put up Inferiority Complex and it took me twelve chapters to get 13 reviews. Now, it's taken me 3. So this is just a big, over-emotional thank you to _everyone_ who has reviewed anything I've written, and especially the two fics mentioned here. Fifty chapters of short stories is a _lot_ to find something new to say everytime, but for the people who saw me through IC, that's what you did. You constantly reviewed and I would wake up to an inbox full of compliments. Not only that, but now some of you have stuck with me and _still_ review what I put out, still find new things to comment on, still give me encouragement when I start flailing.

Since starting IC, my stats tell me I've put up about 80,000 words of fanfiction. Trust me when I say that without you lot reviewing - again, especially the people from IC who've come over here - that'd be more like 5,000 and I'd have given up long before getting anywhere _near_ the 50 chapter mark. The lot of you, honestly, are completely fantastic. So thank you so, so, _so_ much for letting me feel that I can produce things that people like and are interested in, that I have some kind of talent that I can employ. Cheesy and geeky but whenever I start feeling depressed I usually meander back here and read over some of my reviews. To turn a phrase, you guys rock my cyber socks. Once again, thank you.

/ranting gratitude


	5. Sweet Teething

Disclaimer: I own all the angst in the world, I really do. And I keep it hidden but it oozes out no matter what I do. Oh, don't own Death Note. I completely have a box of sugar cubes on my dressing table though and there is _no point asking why because I don't even know_.

Note: No but seriously everytime I try to write a vaguely cheery chapter all the Kira-angst comes pouring out. THERE IS NO JOY IN DEATH NOTE. I'll try harder, I promise. Also, I'm pretty sure Yumi is the name of Aizawa's kid. DN13 tells me his wife and child are called Eriko and Yumi but doesn't tell me which one is which, so I always use Eriko for his wife and Yumi for his girl.

Furthermore - is anyone familiar with Inkheart? For I am rereading it and remembering just how much I love Basta. I wrote my first ever fanfic for that book, you know. Getting all nostalgic now.

Enjoy.

x

**Sweet Teething**

**Prompt: 30. Sugar**

Aizawa glances up. He shuffles his papers, bring a recent news article to the front and underlines a few things. He looks up again.

L is _still eating sugar cubes_.

This has been going on for, at this point, a good ten minutes. L has been studying the computer screen in front of him and idly popping cube after cube into his mouth. Watari has brought out replacement bowls three times now. Aizawa knows it's absurd to get worked up about it, but the idea of a grown man sitting there ingesting sugar like some five year old let loose in a tea shop simply _would not do_. This is the Kira case, and he's _L_. Surely there's some sense of _decorum_ to maintain?

L raises the sugar bowl again. Aizawa feels something inside him convulse. It's really bothering him, and he doesn't know why until he remembers that Yumi used to eat sugar cubes all the time. He'd been able to stop _her_ before she rotted her teeth out, but L…L is beyond his control.

No, let's be honest here: L is beyond _anyone's _control, except, perhaps, Watari's, and the man shows no inclination of exerting that control here or anywhere else.

The bowl is returned to the detective for the fourth time. L nods his thanks to his minder and returns to his work. Aizawa doesn't know how old L is and can't work it out (he's never really been good at that sort of thing and L's face doesn't lend itself to interpretation particularly well anyway) but he knows he's young. He's too young to be working on this kind of thing and risking his life the way he is.

If he could, Aizawa would stop him. But he can't stop L from sticking his neck out anymore than he can stop him eating sugar cubes, so he returns to his work and swears to never, ever let Yumi join the police force.

He's been feeling powerless lately. Working with L, though - Ryuzaki, they're meant to call him, he remembers - that makes the feeling ebb away, make Aizawa feel like he's _doing_ something.

He decides that's worth the discomfort and returns to the article. In the background, he can still here the dull sound of sugar being crunched between molars. Aizawa, though, he figures he can live with that.

For now, anyway.


	6. Flashbacks

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note or anything else with a brand name in this chapter. Guns, I don't own them.

Note: Okaaaay so I don't know about this one. More plot based than emotion based, which is a bit of a departure for me. I don't feel like I pulled it off as well as I normally do which is a shame because it was a wonderful idea donated by Elkaria Disturbia in her review :3 I believe you asked for Ide getting shot while Matsu spaced out about Kira? And then there's the gratuitous innuendo at the end. It probably doesn't come across in my writing (because I edit it out) but I keep feeling like I'm making these two gay for each other. By the time I'm done with this and Passages I'm just going to have to come out and write some damned slash for them, I think. Even if no one ever reads it but me :D

x

**Flashback**

**Prompt: 12. Hell**

"Matsuda! What the _hell_?"

Mogi pulled him roughly round to face him. Matsuda's eyes were a little glazed, and he was still clutching his gun. Mogi pulled it from his grasp and studied him, appalled.

"You were going to shoot him!"

Matsuda looked confused. His eyes focused and unfocused, and he looked from Mogi, to the kid cowering on the floor, to Ide leaning against the wall. He looked at the gun in Mogi's hand.

"I…I don't…"

"You don't _what_, Matsuda?!" Mogi was almost shouting. Mogi _never_ shouted.

Matsuda took a few paces backwards and found himself against a wall. He looked around again, and his head began to clear. They had been - no, they had been…there had been a criminal, no, _lots_ of criminals, and they'd followed this kid, and…and…

And Matsuda hadn't shot him, Matsuda had let him get away. And the kid had _shot Ide_…

Matsuda clutched his stomach. He suddenly felt very sick.

"Ide?" he croaked.

Ide waved weakly from where he was slumped against the wall. "Don't mind me. I'm just bleeding out here. A doctor would be nice. Though I'd settle for morphine." He coughed, and it might just have been the lighting, but Matsuda thought there was blood in it. Ide slid down the wall.

Mogi moved forward and grasped him by the shoulder. "Matsuda. You almost _shot_ that guy. Shot him. What were you _thinking_?"

"I - he -" Matsuda looked back down at the kid on the floor. He couldn't be more than twenty, and obviously new to this whole thing - he was too scared to even try to escape.

He had brown hair and beautiful eyes, and for a moment Matsuda thought -

_For a moment Matsuda thought he was looking at Light Yagami, back from the dead and all over again. He didn't pull the trigger, couldn't pull the trigger, his hand shook and his eyes blurred. The kid had a gun but didn't know who to aim it at, and Matsuda was obviously flailing so he aimed it behind him. Matsuda heard the shot go off but didn't register it._

_Then he heard the scream of pain and jolted out of the warehouse two years ago and back to the grimy back street of today. He spins around and Ide is on the floor, clutching his side, and Matsuda's heart leaps into his throat, choking him -_

_The kid was scrambling away, and before he'd even made the choice to follow, Matsuda turned and pelted after him. He stumbled into walls and grazed his arms, sliced open his leg on some protruding wire. It didn't slow him down._

_He caught up with the kid, screaming and _furious_ - blind, wild fury he hasn't felt in years, and a desire to kill him, to just take him out because he _killed the Chief_ -_

"Matsuda. Matsuda. Come on, stop drifting off."

Matsuda opened his eyes. The white light above him was obnoxiously bright.

"We were talking, remember? There's no one else in this damn ward and I'm bored _senseless_, so stay awake, would you?"

He sat up, and looked round. They were still in the hospital.

"Ide?" he mumbled.

"Yeah?"

Ide was in the bed next to him, the covers pulled down to about his waist, revealing his heavily bandaged torso. Matsuda looked away uneasily, remembering what had happened.

"Matsuda? You with me?"

"Yeah," he answered, a little too quietly. Next to him, Ide frowned.

"Hey, you're not blaming yourself for this, are you?"

Matsuda twisted his blanket between his hands.

"Oh, you _are_."

"Well, it's my fault!" he blurted out.

Ide shook his head. "Come off it. High stress situation triggered all kinds of memories. And that kid, he was the _spit_ of Light. I'm amazed to actually managed to get him like you did."

Matsuda stayed quiet. He didn't just _get_ him, he almost _shot him in the face_, all because he thought some petty thief was someone he'd known years ago.

"Listen to me." Ide's voice was quieter, kinder. "Listen to me, Matsuda. This isn't your fault, and blaming yourself…that's just going to be more guilt. You've got enough to cope with, huh?"

Matsuda didn't answer. Ide sighed.

"Look. I know Aizawa sent you to see one after…after that stuff happened, but I really want you to see someone, okay? A psychiatrist. No, I don't think there's anything wrong with you!" He raised his hands defensively as Matsuda shot him a persecuted look. "I just think…look, Matsuda. It's someone who you can talk to and who can help you deal with it. That's it. Nothing _wrong_, just…someone to help."

Matsuda mumbled something unintelligible. He _hated_ the last shrink they sent him to see. He didn't want to be sent to another one.

Ide watched him for a few minutes, and then rubbed his temple. "Well, so much for that idea. I guess I know why you don't really fancy going to see one. So instead…how about you see me?"

Matsuda shot him an alarmed look.

"Not like that!" Ide yelped, raising his hands again and shaking his head furiously. "Not like - _never_ like that! I just mean - jeez, Matsuda, how could you think I meant like _that_? No, I mean - just like, talking. Like you would to a psychiatrist but I guess…I don't know. I'm your friend, I might be able to help…" Ide trailed off, waving a hand inefficaciously.

Matsuda looked down. "I don't know," he said slowly.

Ide shrugs. "Me or a shrink. Your choice."

The door opened, and a nurse bustled in. "Dinner time, boys!" she chirped, beginning to dole out trays and juice boxes.

"Think on it," Ide said, spearing a carrot. He smiled. "There are worse people to be stuck in a room with."

After everything he'd gone through in the past twenty four hours, Matsuda felt that he'd have to agree.


	7. Comparisons

Disclaimer: Death Note ain't mine.

Note: Aaargh I'm not sure about this one. I could do a better job on it and I PROMISE (hint: remind me, because I want to do this but will forget) I am going to develop this into a much better one shot in December. I just wanted to get my immediate thoughts down so I don't forget them. Last update before the NaNo so silly, hurried, awkward - but enjoy if you can. TOTALLY all down to thebookhobbit who updated a lovely little piece called The Paradox featuring the one and only Linda. Pop on over and check it, she's in my favourites now so you have a handy little link :3 Anyway her writing made me compare Halle and Linda and although THIS is not as good as it could be, the one I put up in December will be better and THAT'll be credited to her too. THANK YOU BOOK.

x

**Comparisons**

**Prompt: 41. Paper**

Halle Lidner is nothing like Linda.

Linda was always a child, a little girl, with her hair in Misa-esque pigtails and her hands clutching at paper and pencils. She hovered round at the back of the room for a few years, and then grew up and grew pretty, and people started asking her to play. Mello remembers because he _noticed_ her them, with soft eyes and a frown that fluttered onto her face and then fluttered away, like the butterflies she kept trying to sketch before they left the windowsill.

And it wouldn't be fair to say Linda never noticed Mello, either. Linda smiled at him, searched (according to Claire) for quite a long time for a good birthday present for him after he befriended her. But then he ran away before she could give it to him, and because Claire had never told him what it was, he never found out.

So Linda noticed Mello, but she always noticed Near more. She would smile at Mello, fold her fingers in a quick, compact wave as she walked past, stare in dismay at the state of the work he fake-destroyed and asked her to help him with. She didn't believe that the second-in-line to the throne that was the name of L needed _her_ help, but she was too polite to tell him that to his face, and they sat together for three evenings in a row talking through it and fixing it up. On the third evening, he tried to kiss her, and she blushed, and pulled away, mumbling that she liked someone else. Mello huffed that he didn't care _anyway_, and went to yell at Matt for a while.

Linda always noticed Near more. She would ask Near if he would come out to play, she would ask him how his puzzles were going, she would sit down next to him, when the Playroom was empty and she didn't realise Mello was watching through a crack in the door, and he would let her talk to him, even if he didn't reply much. Near _never_ had anything close to friends, like Mello did, but Linda…Linda was close. Once, he even let her drag him outside, and he stood curling and uncurling his toes in the dirt for a few minutes, staring round with his fingers coiled in his hair. He went back inside after that, but every time he declined her, Mello noticed he was _very_ careful to say 'thank you'.

And now years on, Linda is gone, lost to the curtains of memory and childhood and a world that Kira only brushed against the edges of. Now they don't have rainy mornings inside with picture books, or sunny afternoons outside with footballs, they have computer screens and surveillance tapes and blazing, blazing, always blazing towards the goal, even if that means going down in flames before you reach it.

Now, years on, Near doesn't have Linda, he has Lidner. Lidner is tall, and very much a woman - she is professional, not pleasant; forceful, not passive. She carries a gun and a grimace instead of paper and pencils, and where Linda's features were soft and pretty, hers are harsh, defined and _beautiful_. She has the kind of body Linda never had too - all grown up, with curves and tautness all bound in together. She doesn't wear her hair in bunches and she never would, never has.

But, Mello thinks, she is like Linda is a _few_ ways. _She_ doesn't believe Mello needs her help either, and never offers it, always needs to be asked. She frowns a lot when Mello is around, and he sees the same startled, upset look in Lidner's eyes that he used to see in Linda's when he deliberately trod on insects to show off.

Lidner prefers Near, too, so maybe she is a little bit like Linda.

In all the ways that count to Mello, anyway.


	8. Genes

Disclaimer: Don't own Death Note, don't own Mogi. No cash for me from this.

Note: So yeah MINDLESS MOGI INTROSPECTION. He doesn't talk much so you KNOW he's gotta be thinking in there. Anyway ramblings for youuu. Including Matsuda, Soichiro, and kids. THOSE DAMN KIDS. I have to go back and watch SGA now, it's got Beckett in it and those episodes are so rare nowadays. Oh, I'm like back from Oxford by the way. OBVIOUSLY. City's lovely. Didn't like the university but it's one of the best in the world so that DOESN'T RLY MATTER DOES IT. Yeah interviews were kinda sucky but I should find out...um...Christmas Eveish, I think, whether I got in or not. Then there's a whole new dilemma but we'll deal with that later.

x

**Genes**

**Prompt: 07. Stranger**

It is sometime in the depths of the morning, when the sun is wiping out the night and colours haven't yet defined themselves. It's a time for uncertainty, really, when shapes still blur and it's neither today nor yesterday, though the clock will tell you one thing and the shopkeepers another, and it's a time when not quite everything makes sense.

That's kind of how Mogi sees it, anyway, but he doesn't voice this opinion to the other members of the taskforce. He doesn't for three reasons: one, he never says much anyway, two, it's far too poetic a statement for him to ever admit to thinking, and three, they're all asleep, except Matsuda, who for some reason isn't, and is just sitting at the foot of the couch he's made his bed. He's folding and unfolding a pillow case, which seems to have been extricated from the mess of blankets and cushions he sleeps on, and something about it strikes Mogi as an anxious gesture.

He doesn't understand Matsuda. Doesn't understand, though the man is really just a few years younger than him, how they can be so completely, totally different. They've both had similar upbringings, he knows – disciplinarian fathers who wanted the best for their sons, fair education, police force as their first job.

But somewhere along the line something must have changed for one of them, because there's no way they'd be this different otherwise. Sure, there's the whole nature-nurture debate saying it could be in your genes anyway, but Mogi isn't sure he believes that. Because if Near's right, and Light _is_ Kira, then that means it's in Light's _genes_ to be this way. And if it's in Light's genes, it was in the Deputy Director's genes, too.

The idea that Soichiro Yagami could have been capable of these murders is one that neither Mogi nor Matsuda would be willing to entertain.

That's one point of similarity between then, anyway, Mogi thinks, and he turns back to the window. Underneath him, the street is waking up. Quiet. Peaceful. Unstrained. None of the worries that go on in this little room, hot from computers and angry words, pierced with the chill of a mechanised voice when a single letter N flashes up on the screens.

Mogi never saw eye to eye with L, but he thinks he'd rather have him here now. L, with his certainty, with his _history_ of always being right...it was easier to trust, easier to follow. And then they were all on the same side, really; there was none of this nonsense with Near and Mello, little boys too big for their boots.

Like Light.

Mogi's barely thirty five but he's starting to feel so old around these kids.

They've all gone past the point of wanting justice now, he decides, as the light trickles over low lying roof tops and filters through the glass of skyscrapers. They've all stopped wanting this to be some great, heroic fight. Up until the Deputy Director died...it still had been. Up until then, it had been noble, it had been _worth_ something.

Now, it was an uphill slog that would more than likely kill them all, and really, Mogi thinks –

Really, they just want it to be over.


	9. Little Lamb

Disclaimer: Don't own Death Note, don't own this situation either. That's keems.

Note: Okay, bit of an odd IP today. Remember that wonderful lady author I rant about, keem? Well, she's got an equally wonderful story Cupidity on the go right now, and that's where this scene comes from. I don't want to spoil for anyone who's reading or is going to, but in short...Matsuda winds up at Near's building at the same time as Gevanni and Lidner. He's sent to the cafeteria with Lidner while Gevanni does something else, and then he goes to join them. keem totally gave me permission to do this and I fluffed it up with a pathetic little mess here. But I kinda like it so I'm posting it anyway. I just get the feeling that calling Lidner 'cute' would be the last thing any man will do. And that Gevanni would just watch the destruction in glee.

x

**Little Lamb**

**Prompt: 31. Words**

When Gevanni enters the cafeteria, it's all he can do not to laugh.

The place is, of course, completely empty, except for the two figures sitting at a table at the far end of the room. Lidner is her usual self, clipped and cleaned and perfectly turned out, and intimidating to her fault. And there, sitting opposite her, is one of the most easily intimated men Gevanni has ever met.

If bones could liquidate, he thinks, Touta Matsuda's would be doing it right now.

Lidner is sitting across the table from him, a cup of coffee untouched in front of her He fingers are steepled neatly a little way below her chin, and her eyes – very piercing, and very blue – are fixed on Matsuda.

And the man just doesn't know where to look.

Even as Gevanni watches, he tries to start up conversation three times. The first time, he is staring at what looks decidedly like a cup of hot chocolate, and he asks what she thinks of the new Kira that's appeared. The second time his eyes keep jumping between the table and a low-hanging light near the coffee machine. He asks if she likes it here.

The third time, he appears to have lost all sense of coherency, because he asks how her mother is and then comments on how pleasant the wall paper is, in bad English, staring at Lidner's nails.

She doesn't say a word. She simply watches him. Matsuda fumbles, and flails, and stares around the room, and doesn't seem to noticed Gevanni at all, and then makes one of the biggest mistakes of his life.

"So," he says, blissfully unaware of the torment he's about to undergo. "You're really cute."

Lidner's eyes flash and her nails go white. Gevanni turns on his heel, and leaves the cafeteria.

There's a coffee machine in the hall, anyway.


End file.
